Last year, Tennessee (state motto: We’re Vaguely Rectangular!) got into the hot new game of drug testing welfare recipients to make sure that none of them were spending their time having any fun. Because what good is having poor people if you can’t systematically scold and humiliate them for being poor? Now the results of the first six months of testing are in, and how are they? A rousing success, if your definition of success is busting a whopping 0.2 percent of people who applied for public assistance.
There are few things authoritarian Republicans hate more than the idea of poors getting something for nothing…especially when they suspect the indigent might be getting government handouts while on drugs. With that in mind, good, God-fearing legislators in Tennessee have determined the best way to keep from giving handouts to druggies is to drug test welfare recipients. Never mind the 4th Amendment implications, drug addicts shouldn’t have rights if they’re getting public assistance, amiright??
Tennessee’s enforcement efforts, designed to weed out welfare recipients spending Tennessee’s tax dollars on meth or blow, has nabbed a staggering- wait for it- .23% of recipients. That’s right, one out of every 401 welfare recipients in Tennessee is using drugs. Or, if you’d like to look at it another way, 99.77% of Tennessee welfare recipients AREN’T using drugs. If you’re wondering how the state can justify spending money on an enforcement effort that nabs all of .23% of those it tests…well, get in line; you’re not alone.
There’s another way to look at this, of course. It’s quite possible (perhaps even likely) that the real purpose behind drug testing was to shame those receiving welfare (as if anyone really wants to be on welfare). Perhaps Republicans in the legislature got tired of hearing about welfare queens living out their champagne dreams on the public’s dime. Maybe they were sick of hearing tales of welfare recipients hanging out at night clubs, sipping Cristal out of the butt cracks of strippers. They figured they best way to weed out the lazy and indolent was to require recipients to pee into a cup and prove they weren’t doing defrauding the good, God-fearing, hard-working sheeple of Tennessee.
The program has been so (not so very) successful that 12 other states- Red states; go figure, right?- are contemplating replicating Tennessee’s (lack of) success. Then again, failure is what Republicans excel at.
Leadership: it’s what Republicans are all about.
Meanwhile other recipients of federal assistance, such as students (talk about fish in a barrel for drug testing!), bankers (ditto), farmers, university professors, small-business owners, large-business owners, veterans and old people do not have any such requirement. But those groups make up such a small percentage of the overall population, obviously.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to be the next state to jump on board, and his plan is even more ambitious (and likely to flame out while costing Wisconsin taxpayers millions). Walker wants to drug-test applicants for unemployment insurance (because, as any Republican will confirm, you really have to be on drugs to lose a job these days) and other state programs. He also wants to ask the Obama Administration for permission to drug-test Wisconisites applying for food stamps.
While you’re at it, why not make them wear scarlet letters?
What better way to save a few thousand dollars than to spend millions to drug-test everyone receiving public assistance? Perhaps Wisconsin’s system will be more efficient and effective. Maybe with any luck they’ll be able to bust .5% of those receiving government handouts, eh?
As for Tennessee, what can you expect from a state that has this to brag about:
No seriously, polling showed that 85 percent of Republicans opposed Obamacare, while only 16 percent opposed Insure Tennessee. But [Americans For Prosperity] made sure everyone, particularly the state’s Republican-dominated legislature, knew that Insure Tennessee was actually a (conservative governor’s negotiated, state budget-neutral) Medicaid expansion that was a part of the Affordable Care Act, and presto! No healthcare for 280,000 poor Tennesseans.
Yep, that’s right; even though “Obamacare” and “Insure Tennessee” are for all intents and purposes the same thing, the sheeple of Tennessee overwhelmingly oppose Obamacare while not having much of a problem with Insure Tennessee.
When you hate The Black Guy in the White House © Just. That. Much….
Is it just me, or does Tennessee really, really suck?
